Friday, January 19, 2007

Only a few decades ago, children were informed that beef should be consumed at least twenty times a week. Aerosol protected us from UV rays. And the painkiller my mom used when giving birth to me was still legal.

That’s the double-edge sword of revisionism, making us hate what used to make us so happy. Such is the case with steroids. McGwire gets fewer votes than Crash Davis, only eight years after his Juicy Juice and non-existent neck saved baseball. San Francisco plays hardball with Bonds, six months after praying for a steroids relapse when he was a .230 cleanup man (I think they got their wish in August and September). Meanwhile, Shawn Merriman is taking his steroids fanny pack all the way to the Pro Bowl.

If you ignore the early deaths, shriveled wangs, and Dr. Moreau nature of
steroids, I think you’ll see how much we owe this liquid gold. In a world without steroids, Mike Schmidt and his moustache would still be the ultimate power hitter. Michael Strahan’s ex-wife would never have gotten $16 million. Pudge Rodriguez’s nickname would have never become ironic.

The Evil Iron Sheik might still be the WWE champion.

Sloth in the Goonies (as played by John Matusak) would have been smaller than Chunk.

And we would have all been robbed of the Dickensian prose of Canseco’s Juiced.

Life was so much simpler in the '70s - '90s, when steroids was treated like homosexuality in the armed forces: everybody was doing it, and it made the whole venture a lot more fun. The truth is, most people enjoy home runs more than pop flies, and don't want to think about why their favorite athletes look like the Goons Popeye used to fight.

So why bother filling the HOF with asterisks? Why make us Giants fans watch Strahan and his sack count waste away? Bring back the roids! And then bring back my birthing pain killer.